Sunday, April 1, 2018

Nothing helps you more than helping others

This week I dived into the drafts folder of my blog posts. There were many interesting titles that I would want to write on, like for example one with title "The crying game". It had no content and I have no idea what I have thought of when writing that down in the year 2013. But what a great title!

But this other one that I'm now writing on had some content and is a pretty dear idea for me, so I'll now finish this post I started back year 2012. And that is, that nothing helps you more than helping others.

I have had this principle for a long time now that whenever someone asks for help, that I always do. Even if I'm swamped with work and in the middle of something and someone interrupts to ask if I could help I'll reply "of course!". Some might argue that asking to come back in an hour would be better, but the bad side on that is that potentially this other person is then stuck for an hour - and this is one hour lost. As opposed to helping them out immediately, everybody can go back and continue on full force.

So I think always helping others out is a good way for the efficiency of the team. And even for you, as if you help others then it is more likely that you will also be helped when you have a problem.

My wife was saying to me while discussing this, that sometimes some people might not want to help because they think keeping some knowledge to them self could be considered an advantage. Kind of like a superpower that other's don't have. I replied that I can maybe see someone thinking like that, but I think that not helping is still more of an disadvantage even for the person holding the information. Because good ideas can always get better and a great way to improve them is to share them and let others offer their own in return. Things I thought were pretty darn good already have gotten a lot better when I have shared them to others, by them offering their criticism and ideas in return.

So helping out improves also the ideas and knowledge you have.

And then there's the humanity factor.

I was a few years ago collecting money for Unicef with my son. Me and him (four years old back then), were standing on the center of Helsinki with a small box where we were asking people to donate some coins for the sake of poor people in Africa. I was quite sure that the box would get filled up in like minutes, the cause being so good and my son being pretty cute with an over sized Unicef vest almost touching the ground - but people were just walking on by. Hundreds of people just walking on by.

I was many times on the verge of losing my faith to the humanity, but then someone came, and dropped a few coins with a smile. And it rose us so much. It didn't even matter was it 2, 1, or .10 euros, just the fact of someone took the time to notice and give out something meant so much.

So these times when I see people collecting money for a good cause, I always give something. Like 10 cents. Because I know how much it means for the people who are giving out their own time for free, in order to help others.

So even in the context of the whole planet and human race, nothing helps us more than helping others.

I'll just close this one with a link to one of my favorite Beatles songs, you may guess what it is :)